Götterdämmerung
by frazthealien
Summary: Slightly angsty historical fic, in which Eric and Godric dine out around Europe and America. Godric/Eric, rating for violence.


**Götterdämmerung**

Characters/Pairings: Godric/Eric (about as slashy as the show).  
Warnings: Non-graphic violence and death (and, well, vampirism…)  
Disclaimer: Not mine, yo.  
Spoilers: Up to 2.09  
A/N: While all the other angsty teens are writing songfic, I'm writing operafic… "Götterdämmerung" means "Twilight of the Gods" (I didn't really want the word "twilight" in the title of my vampire fic, what can I say?) First line thanks to David Mitchell, of all people. I'm sure he'd be glad to know that an offhand suggestion he made on a comedic chat show inspired... this.

-

_Es naht die Nacht; vor ihrem Neid biete sie Bergung nun. _

The night is falling; from all its envy it now offers salvation.

(Wagner, _Der Ring Des Nibelungen)_

-

_Paris, 1788_

The last time I killed it was irritatingly messy. Blood in my hair, on my favourite shoes and dripping from the previously pristine silk waistcoat Godric was kind enough to pick out for me.

I didn't even get a meal out of the girl. There was no need to prolong her death as such. I could have done it swiftly and relatively painlessly, without her knowledge even, but perhaps in the end it was worth the ruined shoes.

Godric still calls me a dreamer because I only kill those who seek out death, who yearn for it actively. They all want to die, he says. He has told me so many times, and when the young man in the grip of those soft white hands was begging Godric to finish him, it was difficult to argue.

"They're terrified, sometimes," he said, and stroked the boy's hair. "But I know in my heart they are thankful." Then he put him out of his misery. I wanted to tell Godric that he was wrong, but my stomach would have been rumbling if it could. That discussion was postponed.

I knew the girl in that backstreet would be thankful. Her parents called her a disgrace; her lover was unfaithful; the gods had not been kind to her. Her eyes were wide and her pulse like lightning. Her dying gasp was in gratitude. I knew it, because I knew her, and there's no better feeling.

I dropped her to the ground; I had had my fill earlier. This was only a kindness to her. Perhaps she would have wished for more ceremony, but when is Death ever graceful? He comes in my guise, or in Godric's, but when he strikes there is no white light or music, only grime and dirt and blissful numbness.

My hat had been knocked off in the struggle, so it was my only clothing saved from staining. I replaced it and tipped it to the mangled body.

"You're welcome, Lucie. Won't Victor feel just awful about his indiscretions now?"

I was rather proud of myself, and I strolled off with a smile.

Now, though, I haven't eaten for nights. I wish I'd snacked on Lucie when I had the chance. Godric's annoyed about the waistcoat, I imagine. He's kept me in since then, but tonight I simply have to stave my hunger.

"We have to keep up our appearances," he tells me as he straightens my collar and it's fairly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard him say. "You won't find respect in dark alleys and on street corners. We're going out to the club tonight."

"The men there are well-fed and prosperous," I reply. "We have no business bringing them what they do not ask for."

"Oh, Eric, my child." He pats my shoulder and for once I feel patronised. "It's those who have everything who most want rid of it."

I don't believe him at all. But later that night, when it's the blood of a fat, wealthy man dripping warmly from my mouth, when Godric is glad of me and proud, I think that disgusting snob tastes just as sweet as poor desperate Lucie. Why did I ever doubt my Maker?

*

_Derbyshire , England, 1811 _

We have moved on account of the troubles on the Continent. Even Death incarnate flees from human warfare like a cockroach before a light.

"They are so petty," Godric tells me over the top of his evening newspaper. "So many dead and nameless."

"But you say they all wish for death." I am sitting and stoking the fire for want of something to do. It is so dull in the country, but we had to take respite from travel somewhere.

"It's not right that they should slaughter each other in thousands and lie in their unmarked graves. We connect with them as we act – we tell them 'yes, we know your suffering, and we shall relieve it.' We do not mow them down like savages."

"I've seen a lot of wars," I say. I have also seen Godric kill hundreds with no attempt to sympathise with his prey – but then, I'm a dreamer. I think understanding involves more than feeding off them.

"And I have seen more. The attitude has always bothered me." He frowns and drops his paper, getting up from the armchair and stretching. "You are hungry?"

"Yes." I am also annoyed at him for no reason I can discern. This is not the natural state of things. I should not be at odds with my Maker.

He offers his hand to pull me up from the floor and I take it. He smiles at me. "Let us go and separate a few mortals from their earthly troubles."

A woman makes a crude joke about me and Godric that night, and never repeats it. Humans are so simple; they cannot recognise that our bond could only be weakened through what they call love. Lovers are petty and jealous and blind. Godric only makes me see things more clearly.

*

_Somewhere in Switzerland, 1867_

"I don't like this country," I say as I pick bits of farmer out of my teeth. Godric is not listening. "It's pretty enough, but do they have to murder every language they come across?"

He still does not respond.

"Godric?"

He speaks suddenly. "Do you think that God is grateful for our work?"

"Humans say it's wrong to kill," I reply, as if I care what they think. "But they don't live by their own rules."

"They define right and wrong to suit their own purposes, because in truth there are no such simple concepts," he states in an uninterested tone. Then he speaks more thoughtfully again:

"But I did not ask you what is right; do you think that God is grateful, Eric?"

I'm surprised that Godric still believes in any higher power, having seen humankind alter their belief systems even more than their ideals or their prejudices. I humour him as always, though.

"I think He'd be glad," I say. "His people are going to be with Him."

"Yes, that's what I thought," says Godric and the look in his eyes is far away.

*

_London, 1889_

"You enjoyed _Tristan and Isolde_," says Godric when I dismiss his plans to go to the opera. We saw it back in Munich, a decade ago, perhaps; I forget.

"The music was perfectly good," I reply. "But I was unfamiliar with the source material. I fear this time I'll be turning in my coffin."

Godric of course gets his way, and _Das Rheingold_ it is. I do rather enjoy it in the end. I don't tell Godric so – I can't let him have everything.

That soprano was delicious, though, and desperate for the end; but so is everything that breathes.

*

_Graz, Austria-Hungary, 1913_

"There is something coming, you know," says Mariele. She sits across the table from us, half-hidden by a haze of smoke. I find her disagreeable in almost every respect, but she is one of our kind and Godric has insisted that we become acquainted.

She leans across and I can feel my lip reflexively curling in disgust. There is something distasteful about her manner, her clothes, and anything else about her that you care to name.

"They know it, these humans, and I know too," she continues. "It's in the air. The signs of unrest-" She coughs loudly and Godric cuts in.

"I've felt the same way recently." He turns to me. "I think we may have to leave soon."

"We've only just arrived," I say with a huff. It has been mere months. I thought I would be unhappy – the people here seem so joyful, so eager – but I find I am content.

"If you don't go soon, then you will never go," she says. "Staying is..." She waves her cigarette holder around as if for inspiration. "_...auf Ihre eigene Gefahr_."

"We're willing to take that risk," I say irritably. I feel Godric's hand on my arm.

"I must speak alone with Eric," he tells her. "You must excuse us."

Godric can be very firm when he wants to be. Mariele is gone quickly. He looks to me and he seems almost startled.

"You cannot mean what you said to her?" His voice is barely above a whisper and hard to hear over the noise of the bar. There is cheerful music and drunken humans are singing and dancing all around us.

I shrug. I only said it because she was exasperating me.

"You must not strain my heart so," says Godric and I try hard not to roll my eyes. "You know I could not bear to see you be so reckless."

"Why are you talking like this?" I ask.

"You would put yourself in danger for the sake of not moving? Mariele was right, there are troubles ahead-"

"I meant, why so sentimental?" I interrupt, though I can't pretend I'm not glad of his concern for me.

"I think I understand humans better now."

I don't reply, as I don't see what this has to do with my question.

"I have always thought that they wish for death, and I am right; but they only wish it upon themselves. The suffering they feel when the one they care for is gone..." I can hear the vicissitudes of millennia in his sigh.

All this talk is making me uncomfortable. "We'll leave then," I say. "England again?"

"I fear England may not be far enough," replies Godric gravely.

"Scotland?" I suggest instead and that raises a smile from him.

"We shall discuss it later," he says. "For now, let's find someone lonely? Very lonely?"

"Whom no one cares for?"

"Exactly."

The man we choose reminds me of my first, back in a time when I could not even bring myself to kill women because I thought them all too innocent, too delicate. He was cruel and despicable and still I thought the whole thing senseless. War was a purpose to kill for; my hunger was not.

Now I spare little thought for the man. Godric, however, looks worried even as he laps the stray blood tenderly from around my mouth.

"I wonder if there will be tears at the funeral," he says as he glances again at the body. I think for a second that I do not understand him at all. Even if that's so, it hardly matters – I have always known that I'll follow him forever, even into the light.

*

_San Antonio, Texas, 1919_

I wish I were able to drown my sorrows. Godric and I have fallen out – we never quarrel, so I have no idea what to do. He has never reproached me harshly for any decision, however he might disagree.

I was angry because he won't eat properly; he requires very little sustenance, it's true, but it's been far too long. He cannot depend upon my blood forever.

"You do not understand how they love one another, how I cannot end one human's suffering without causing that of others." His voice was calm, as always, but I knew he was frustrated.

"No," I admitted, "I don't know how they love. I only know my loyalty to my Maker, and that I cannot see him starve."

"What is my sorrow to that of those hundreds who have ached with grief and loss because of me?"

I didn't see that correcting him would help, but it is more like tens of thousands. And I am no longer convinced that all humans wish to die. I've seen enough terrified faces these past centuries to doubt his word on that – but it is an uncomfortable feeling to doubt his word in anything.

I leave to find some food for him, whether he likes it or not. I find a girl who looks suitable.

"We should live every day like it's our last," says Tessa, touching the small silver cross around her neck, the only thing about her that's elegant. "That's my philosophy." Indeed, it seems she clings to those words.

I realise then that Tessa's _that_ sort of human. One who prays three times a day because she's scared that Heaven might not be there. One who can't look Death in the face, who would kick and scream and murder so as not to go with him. Just my type, I decide, though Godric would say they are all the same.

"That's a beautiful necklace," I tell her anyway, because I have to know that he is right. I have to know that she will be thankful, that we have not been killing wantonly all this time – not because I'm guilty, but because if we have it would break Godric's heart.

"Ain't it?" She thrusts her chest out at me.

"Pure silver?" I ask. I'll take her back with me so that we can make up, sharing her blood and ours. The world will be right again – if there is such a thing as rightness, it is that Godric and I should not be divided.

She shakes her head. "Platinum. Say what you like 'bout my dad, he weren't no cheapskate," she says with a hint of a frown.

Daddy issues certainly go some way towards explaining her choice of companion tonight. It's not difficult to get her alone with me. Tessa's practically falling into my arms, cooing something stupid and clichéd at me.

I'm out of patience. She doesn't put up much of a fight and soon she faints - the mess is quite minimal this time. But in the fading brightness of her eyes, the fractured gasps and twitching fingers, there is nothing to be found at all but fear.

*

_Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1920_

The rows of small white headstones shine a stark white in the moonlight. Godric has his eyes closed and a faint smile on his face, soft in the half-gloom. There is something quite poignant about the scene – something that makes me uncomfortable. I have to break the silence.

"Well, aren't we the stereotype."

He's startled at my voice, though he must have heard the crunch of snow as I approached.

"What do you mean?" he asks after a moment.

"Hanging out in cemeteries. It's not like you."

He tilts his head and looks at me oddly. "No, I suppose not."

There is a long pause.

"Do you want to get someone to eat?" I ask eventually, when Godric starts to stare wistfully skywards.

"I'm not hungry," he murmurs.

I go to him and touch his arm. "Godric..."

He takes my arm with the same hand and we stand there for a moment, clasping each other's wrists as if in ceremony.

We haven't been drifting apart, exactly, but there's been the insipient feeling recently that our life of roaming the Earth together is coming to an end. Our bond is not subject to distance, but at the thought a coldness comes over me and it has nothing to do with the chill of the night. I swallow.

"A meal? Come on," I say softly. "Drain them dry, like old times?" When I first met Godric his appetite was insatiable – we never left good blood to be wasted. I want things to be as they were.

I know he has barely killed recently, if at all, but he nods at my suggestion. The affection in his eyes both warms me and guilts me, though I couldn't say why.

"No," I decide; I can't make him do it. "No." I put my teeth to my forearm until the blood trickles out and then I offer it to him. I stroke his hair a little as he sucks at my skin. I've never seen him so childlike, so grateful for so little.

Suddenly I feel strangely ill. I tug my arm away gently and Godric looks up at me again. He licks my blood from his lips and smiles.

"Thank you," he says sincerely and somehow I know that soon we'll go our separate ways. I can only hope that in some way it'll be for the better.

*

_Dallas, Texas, 2009_

It becomes clear why Godric thought that everyone must be tired of life.

I have underestimated him all this time; there is one reason he has stayed, discontent, in the world for so long. For the first time I start hoping that that God of his exists.

I don't see it happen, but I can barely see as it is. My eyes are too full of blood.

*


End file.
